New Poetry - Modernist Magazines Project

II
To those who sail the salt quotidian sea
The tempting syren sings across the flood,
But once plunged in, they find her out to be
A desert island with a coast of mud.
Lulled by the waves, no mortal heart resists
The gaudy scenery of the noble bay,
That paradisal image which persists
In all its brightness to the present day.
Each one is Tantalus to what he dreams,
The waters of illusion lap his chin,
Ready to hand the flattering symbol seems
And Tantalus is always taken in.
Each day he starts, he leaps towards the goal,
Driven along by life's impulsive tide.
His wishes are no more in his control
Than the bright objects which his eyes provide.
Boasting each project absolutely new,
His rising sciences, renascent arts,
All that he frames has one grand aim in view,
One which is not declared but simply starts.
Automaton of fate, led on by time,
He learns no lesson from repeated pain.
Like the old lag, he knows the price of crime
And yet he cannot help but try again.
Till, one fine day, still hoping against hope
In spite of all this once to be exempt
From nature's warrant and the hangman's rope,
The bourgeois perishes in his attempt.